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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Potatoes ( How To Grow Yukon Gold Potatoes )

Hello and welcome back here today on Garden The Easy Way. This is Ken and Marilou, and today we would like to talk about a potato that is very popular, the name is Yukon Gold Potatoes, they are flavorful and you can cook them a lot of different way. Restaurant like them because they are big and they have a sweet taste to them, and they are great baked for the stuffed potato. They are delicious fried or made into potato salad. The Yukon Gold is a large potato and is recognized by the smooth eyes and it has thin yellow skin and yellow flesh on the inside. If you grow this Yukon Gold Potato, you and your family will be glad you did.

We Americans love our potatoes, this year in Idaho, they grow over 117,000 millions of pounds of potatoes, that is a lot of french fries. But after a little research we found out that China come in number one on growing potatoes, they grows the most potatoes in 2007, they made over 80,000 million tons of potatoes. Russian in second with 37 million tons. What a big surprise, people all over the world love eating their potatoes.

The Yukon Gold is a good big potato to grow, and it is easy to grow, but just like everything else there are some things you need to know.

1. You can plant ( tubers whole ) or cut them into pieces with 2 or 3 eyes, after cutting, the size should be no bigger than a chicken egg, spread them out in a well ventilated place to dry 24 hours before planting. The eyes produce vines and roots. ( For the People out there that don't know what a tubers is, it is a Potatoes. )

2. Your soil is very important, till down in the soil about 12 inches deep, add 2 to 3 inches of aged manure (cow or horse) mix well, add 2 to 3 inches of compost, mix well. Good Money Tip, if go see your local farmer near you he will probably give you all the aged manure you will need for, ( Free ). Most all farmers are very kind people and they are willing to help others out anyway they can, and the farmer is glad to get rid of the manure. We have a dairy farmer just down the road from us and when we go to his farm, he will get his big tractor out and give us 3-big scoops in our pick-up, and now we have a pick-up load of the best all natural organic fertilizer that money can buy for ( Free ). Go see your local farmer, you will be glad you did. Do not for get to ask for the aged manure, cow or horse will work.

3. Make sure to plant in ( Full Sun ) make your rows in a mound.

4. Make sure to plant with the eyes up, and only 2 to 3 inches deep, and 10 to 12 inches apart, rows 24 inches apart. Water well after planting.

5. Never let the soil dry completely out, you can add mulch to help hold in moisture, and the mulch will help to keep the weeds down.

6. Height: 18 to 24 inches Days to Maturity: 65 days

Things You'll Need:

Sharp Knife

Garden Tiller

Compost

Fertilizer: Aged manure ( cow or horse )

Shovel
Hoe
Garden Rake
Pitchfork for digging up your potatoes when you harvest

Well that's it for today, we hope that we have been some help here today on Garden The Easy Way, until tomorrow this is Ken & Marilou wishing you all Happy Gardening Always.